Buenos Aires - Part 1

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA -- Good evening to you from lovely Buenos Aires!

I have had one heck of a past 24 hours since I last wrote from Houston. There was no free wifi at IAH, so I just posted the updates a few minutes ago, but this one I am currently writing "live."

The overnight flight was a little shorter than I expected - about 10 1/2 hours. Crazy to consider that in the same category as anything that could be described as "short," relative or otherwise. Ended up watching a couple movies along with dinner, and spent a whole lot of time attempting and failing to fall asleep. Eventually I passed out as dawn was already breaking, got about 2 hours of shut-eye, and woke up in time for breakfast and the last hour of the flight coming into Argentina. Did have a couple of fun fly-overs. We flew just to the west of Cancun and Islas Mujeres, on an angle then coming in directly over Cozumel. With a left (NE)-facing window, I got some phenomenal photos of Cancun lit up at night, from 37,000 feet.

Check out Cancun above! Islas Mujeres are the islands that look like one horizontal strip towards the top of the image, "above" the city. The lit-up street to the top-left and top-right of the city is along the beach, where most of the resorts in Cancun are.

From there we flew directly over Panama City, Panama. Unfortunately we were so directly over it, photos were completely impossible. We entered South America over the southwest corner of Colombia, crossed the Andes, and followed the plains down all the way into Argentina and eventually Buenos Aires.

Ezeiza International Airport (EZE) was smaller than I expected for the size of the city, and immigration was totally understaffed. We were charged $140 on landing as part of a reciprocity fee (we charge Argentinians that much to come to the US), but the fee is valid for 10 years! My goal is to use it at least one other time! We ended up waiting 1 full hour to pay the bill and get through immigration. Once past, our luggage hadn't even arrived. By the time we got that and everything was scanned at customs (literally everything, no questions asked), and found an official cab to take us into town, it had been a full two hours - kind of nuts.

That said, just 30 minutes after that, early this afternoon we were at our Hostel Suites Obelisco, all checked in, bags down, changed into some summer clothes, and on our way to explore! It was great wearing a t-shirt and shorts, walking around, and being genuinely warm. Usually that feeling drives me nuts, but with one day before Antarctica, it was great to be out in it!

Walked first over to the namesake of this hostel - the obelisco, in the Plaza de la Republica!

There are essentially four "main areas" of downtown - the obelisco is certainly one of them, with three of the major streets all intersecting right around it. It makes finding your way around fantastically easy, as if you are anywhere within a mile, you can see it and find your bearings. Our hostel is just two blocks away.

From there we headed over to the "Pink House," La Casa Rosada, which is the house of the executive branch in Argentina. The Pink House = the Argentinian version of the US White House, except, of course, it is pink! They were setting things up for holiday festivities on the main square right in front of it, so there is scaffolding everywhere, but you get the idea in the photo nonetheless.

From La Casa Rosada, headed down to the Buenos Aires waterfront, the Puerto Madero neighborhood, or barrio, of Buenos Aires. The historical docklands take a pretty big cue out of the East London docklands, with some brightly colored massive cranes lining the area - but you get the idea that they are no longer used anymore. The focal point of the Puerto Madero barrio is the Puente de la Mujer, the "Woman's Bridge." It is an architectural masterpiece by the world-famous Santiago Calatrava, master architect of the Chicago Spire, among his more famous projects. It is a forward cantilever design, seen in the photo below, and apparently it is where all of Buenos Aires likes to relax on a hot day with a cold beverage!

Last of the four main areas in downtown Buenos Aires is Florida Street, which had an overly touristy feel to it (in greater contrast to the first three sites), but was nonetheless an interesting place to walk around. Pedestrian-only dating back 98 years, it is your typical shopping district in a major city. Different than most, however, is the fact that all of the "street vendors" are lined up in the middle of the walkway selling their products (which ranged among just about anything you could possibly imagine)... directly in front of all of the open stores.

Well - I finally managed to find a money exchange on Florida Street, then grabbed some dinner downtown - had some extremely cheap and very tasty pizza di Roma. Another observation: food here appears to consist of meat, pizza, and pasta. I gather it is essentially the Brazilian/Spanish/Portuguese/Italian influence that drives this. Literally the only things I have seen that are not those three categories are the endless McDonald's, plus a couple Burger Kings and Subways. Oh, and the gelato is quite tasty!

Another observation: as has always been the case, in times of need, my Espanol comes back to me. Ordering food, asking for directions, simply having brief conversations - clearly I am not very good at it, but it is all good enough to get by, and everyone I have talked to is genuinely happy to see that I am struggling through finding my Spanish, as opposed to forcing them to try and figure something out in English that most of them do not really understand. In any case, like in Nicaragua, it is already coming back to me in a hurry! Not sure what the vibe will be like in Ushuaia or on the ship, but good to have it back when needed!

Well - I am wrapping this post up at a lovely 7:00am on Saturday. I am sitting in the hotel common area with an open door - the sun is up, it's in the 70s with a nice breeze... life is good! I should enjoy this warmth now, I basically have three hours of it left for the next two weeks. Having some breakfast in a few, the hopping in a cab over to the domestic aeropuerto, AEP, for a flight to Ushuaia via Rio Galleros!

See you from Tierra del Fuego!